Odd lots

Less than two months after telling the The Australian Financial Review that he was happy with only one Australian dealer, that dealer being the Brisbane-based Jan Murphy, artist
Ben Quilty
has joined Jan Minchin’s blue-chip Melbourne stable, Tolarno Galleries. Murphy says the approach from Minchin came as a result of the Financial Review story and that Quilty would continue to show with her as well. Quilty’s first show with the Melbourne-based Tolarno will be in 2013. Another Melbourne gallery, Metro Gallery, has added 2011 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize winner Vincent Fantauzzo to its stable. Fantauzzo also won last year’s Metro Art Award. His first solo show with the Armadale gallery will be in September.

The National Portrait Gallery has bought Nicholas Harding’s portrait of the actor Hugo Weaving. The 2011 painting, Hugo at Home, was a finalist in last year’s Archibald Prize. It is quite a coup for Harding and Weaving, as the Canberra institution does not buy many Archibald entries. Those that are in its collection are typically donated; the art dealer Tim Olsen donated Cherry Hood’s 2002 Archibald winning portrait of the pianist Simon Tedeschi, and Guy Maestri, also in the Olsen stable, gifted it his 2009 Archibald-winning portrait of the blind Aboriginal singer Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu. The gallery’s senior curator, Christopher Chapman, confirms the intended acquisition of the Harding painting, but says it is yet to go in front of the gallery board, which will happen in June. He says such portraits are typically bought for the sitter more than for the artist, and that this will be a great addition to the collection. It’s a feather in the cap and cash in the pockets of Harding and his Sydney dealer, Rex Irwin.

Rosslynd Piggott has won the $25,000 R&M McGivern Art Prize for an oil on linen painting depicting the same area of sky over 24 hours. The winning work is called 24 hours/Tremor. Administered by The Trust Company and Maroondah City Council, the prize is given every three years. It was established through the will of Muriel McGivern to promote artistic excellence in watercolour, oil and acrylic painting and to build a high-quality art collection for the Maroondah region in Victoria. McGivern founded the Croydon Historical Society and Museum in 1963. Piggott noted on accepting the prize that “most artists are having a very tough time" at the moment" and that such prizes were welcome.Katrina Strickland